The Biased Eye of the Beholder

An actor’s success can depend on whether he has the “look” a director has in mind. Life away from the stage also can be tough when someone decides you don’t look the part. Ask Condoleezza Rice, a director of European and Soviet affairs on President Bush’s National Security Council.

When Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev was in San Francisco this week, Rice lined up with other White House VIPS to say farewell. She and others wore pins to identify themselves as members of the U.S. delegation. Yet a Secret Service agent shoved Rice and told her to get away from the dignitaries.

In Los Angeles, writer Bruce Bean walked into a home improvement store to buy a drill. A clerk passed, eyeing him. Soon Bean--but not the others shopping in the same department--was surrounded by three extraordinarily attentive employees.

The only certain thing Condoleezza Rice and Bruce Bean have in common is that they are both African-Americans. And that they are neither troublemakers nor thieves. But to some they apparently “looked” the part.

Now, all sorts of excuses have been offered for the agent’s treatment of Rice--including the common excuse that “these things just happen.” And so they do. Every day. To Bruce Bean in the hardware store, to a black person trying to hail a cab in New York. Even outside of Hollywood, everyday life can be full of indignities when one doesn’t look the part.